Did your very first character die or level up?

[billd91]

I mean, for a true beginning Player with a first character, you haven’t learned the “tricks of the trade,” so to speak, of D&D gaming.

For that matter, not all of the DMs involved in these cases had probably learned the tricks of the trade either. I'd bet there was a lot less concern about how to optimally challenge the PCs by using the monster's "best" abilities. That's something I only started reading about once 3e was out and the internet made connections to DMs who think like that easier.

 

[thalmin]

I believe all of my D&D characters (except convention/game-day events) have made level before dying.

However, both of my characters for Traveller died before we started playing.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

I had a theory to test, that’s why I posted the poll as I did.

My hypothesis:
Starting characters had a better chance of surviving a Player’s first experience in the game in later editions of the game versus earlier editions.

Your suprise results may have something to do with how people define "first character", as well. When you asked the question, I thought about the first one I used to teach myself the game-- and not only did he never level up, he was killed on multiple occasions in multiple ways. I suspect a lot of gamers had a starter character or two like this that they're not really considering as their "first".

 

[Mournblade94]

My original Character named Draco, died fighting the CHAOTIC LVL 3 HIGH PRIEST in the Keep on the Borderlands. He was inside the keep and my 'dm' read the stat block after he read the situation block. verbatim. I knew he was eveil so I had to kill him! Except Draco Died. Only due to magic. You see Draco had -22 AC. I used to think armour stacked in those days so I wore plate mail, over chain mail, over leather armour. I also figured two hands meant two weapons if you did not use a shield. Clearly you can't use a two-handed sword in one hand... so Draco used a Halberd in the left hand and a long sword in the right hand.

After that I toook over DMing and in my 10 year old mind it was such a great foil to have the Lawful party attack the red dragon. Except it wasn't a red Dragon. It was a gold dragon that had red paint spilled on him.

Oh yeah and Hank from the D&D cartoon was a majour NPC. Bilbo was his friend because he killed Gollum. Sources: Hobbit cartoon and D&D cartoon.

I still cry when I think back to it.

 

[john112364]

My first character has a convoluted begining. My very first character was in 1979 1ed. He was a 1st level half elven thief. I will never forget my first game because we were fighting a bear and my thief pulled out his sling (because even as a newbie I knew that I didn't want to stab this bear with a sword). I remember one of the (slghtly) more experienced players sneering at my sling. ("A sling? What's that going to do?") As it turns out, my little sling bullet was the killing blow. (Ha!) I was hooked! Unfortunately, the DM liked to keep the character sheets for safekeeping... and misplaced my thief. Oh well now I got to roll up a new one. This one was a human magic-user (with a sleep spell!) After sleep spelling the alligators (don't ask.) the game ended. Next week the DM said he found my thief. Now I had a problem. I liked both my characters. They both had very memorable moments in my first two games. So my DM came up with a solution: since it was his fault that I had two characters he would let me merge them into a multiclass half elven magic user/thief! (To this day this is still my favorite multiclass combo.) This character not only lived to level up, he thrived. He made it up to 5/6 (or 7) in that campaign and I used him him several otherr games over the years. I even used his as an NPC in my own game from time to time. So I said that my first character lived to level even though he wasn;t completely the same character I started with. Wow. I miss those inocent days.

 

[Sticknia]

I started with the Basic Red Set and played the single player adventure.
I don't know if that made it harder or easier to level.
All I know is, I was hooked after I managed to avoid the "murder holes".

 

[Remathilis]

My first PC died in his very first session because of DM inexperience (He was using the wrong monster stats). As a compensation, he let me re-use the stats for another PC (which they found in the next room) who was the PCs brother, took his gear, vowed vengeance against the evil-mage, and lived for another 9 levels before converting to 2e and eventually the campaign ending.